Grayscale reports 99% of SEC comment letters support spot Bitcoin ETF

Digital asset manager Grayscale reported overwhelming support in public comments for its application to launch a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

In a Monday letter to investors, Grayscale said that of the more than 11,400 letters the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, had received in regards to its proposed Bitcoin (BTC) investment vehicle, “99.96 percent of those comment letters were supportive of Grayscale’s case” as of June 9. According to Grayscale, roughly 33% of the letters questioned the lack of a spot BTC ETF in the U.S., given the SEC had already approved investment vehicles linked to Bitcoin futures, as was the case for ProShares and Valkyrie.

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© Reuters SEC Chair Gary Gensler calls Bitcoin a commodity

In an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said that Bitcoin was the only cryptocurrency he was ready to publicly call a commodity.

Gensler aired his views while examining the implications of classifying certain cryptocurrencies as commodities rather than securities. He also addressed previous calls to ramp up the commission’s regulatory oversight of the crypto market.

According to Gensler, all the main market regulators in the US agree that cryptocurrencies are highly speculative. “This is a highly speculative asset class. We’ve known this for a long time the ups and downs of this speculative asset class — Bitcoin and hundreds of other tokens,” he said.

He goes on to note that the investing public expects a return from most of these digital assets like they would when they invest in securities. As a result, Gensler concludes that most tokens in the crypto market have the “key attributes” of securities, thereby putting them under the purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Interestingly, Gensler opined that Bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies could be considered commodities.

Some, like Bitcoin, and that’s the only one, Jim, I’m gonna say because I’m not going to talk about any one of these tokens but my predecessors and others have said they’re a commodity.

Meanwhile, he called for fair disclosures in the crypto market, noting that the US was open to having hundreds of tokens legally operating in its market if they complied with SEC laws.

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Ethereum liquidity provider XCarnival negotiates return of 50% stolen ETH

XCarnival, a liquidity provider for the Ethereum ecosystem, recovered 1,467 Ether (ETH) just a day after suffering an exploit that drained 3,087 ETH, worth roughly $3.8 million, from the protocol.

Blockchain investigator Peckshield noticed the XCarnival hack as it came across a stream of transactions that eventually bled 3,087 ETH from the protocol. Explaining the nature of the exploit, Peckshield stated:

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